


Decrescendo

by GhostoftheMotif



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel (Movies)
Genre: Bondage, Hand Jobs, M/M, Magic, Strip Tease, Supervillains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-24
Updated: 2012-05-24
Packaged: 2017-11-05 22:49:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/411885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostoftheMotif/pseuds/GhostoftheMotif
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Victor was never one to do anything by halves, and if Loki was so desperate to wreck himself, he would be happy to provide the cliffs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Decrescendo

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vorpalplatypus](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=vorpalplatypus).



Loki walked into the room with an apologetic smile and a light to his eyes that made Victor sigh in a prologue to irritation. “I’m afraid I’ve killed that blonde attendant.” Judging from the sated fluidity of his guest’s movement and the spattering of red decorating his illustrious attire, that was something of an understated choice of words.

“There are several blonde attendants.” Victor returned his attention to his book, turned a page, and then set the hand to rest on the arm of his chair. “You will need to be more specific.”

That smile split, gained some teeth as Loki gestured in dismissal. “The details escape me. Poor lamb walked down the wrong corridor at an unfortunate hour of the night.” Loki sank onto the settee across from him, an elegant sprawl that was surely as affected as the rest him in these casual moments of familiarity. “He was rather adorable, really. His last words were _oh, dear_ in this surprised, delicious sort of gasp.”

“Ah, Bertrand.” Another page. “No great loss.”

Loki rolled his head lazily against the settee’s back, exposing a pale, tempting line of tendon and artery. “I hope your day has been more enjoyable than mine, my dear.”

“I doubt that you do,” Victor commented with a low note of indifference. “Some suffering on my part would give your difficult day a pleasant ending.”

The sound of delight that escaped over Loki’s tongue tilted his face to the ceiling, and that pulse pressed up sweetly against the skin on its way to the dip of collar bone. “Oh, leave me my lies, Victor, or I’ll have nothing left.”

“You’d have the violence,” he reminded him dully. “I could never take that from you.”

“Hmm, yes.” Loki lifted a hand out in front of him, the ruddy remnants of blood sunken into the paper-thin creases of skin. “I suppose I should wash the Bertrand off before it sets in. I prefer stainless clothes to the illusion.”

That was only occasionally a truth, Victor knew. Loki did like to wear blood stains beneath a veneer of polish if it meant he could talk to the deceased’s loved ones and have the satisfaction of that secret. It was an intriguing display to observe. Loki was never so fascinating as when he was peddling those bittersweet poisons into open minds, no need of magic or weapon beyond that of his speech and manner.

“Are you enjoying your book?”

Victor met Loki’s eyes briefly, just long enough for Loki to perceive the restraint therein. “You deceive with gifts as proficiently as you do with words. There are five spells depicted in its contents, and all call for the brain matter of a Jotun and the tongue of a great liar.”

“It’s been months since you last tried to kill me.” Loki’s face took on an expression designed to entice that instead instigated a flare of anger. His insistence on these careless tests would be his death. “I like being able to predict where you’ll draw your next inspiration.”

“And I loathe your assumptions.” Victor closed the book. “There is a bottle of wine in your room. Do not drink it. I’ve changed my mind.”

Loki arched an eyebrow, his smile going crooked though no less vivid. “Poison or a tranquilizer?”

“Tranquilizer,” Victor answered. It cost him nothing to divulge. “I know how much stock you put in meaningful last conversations.”

Loki laughed. Instantaneously, Victor was on guard; no amount of exposure could ever diminish the instinctual reaction to that sound. “How thoughtful. I’ll remember it.”

“I’d prefer it if you did not.”

“Then it is forever committed to memory.” Spoken in that voice, it was a vow.

Victor stood. If their conversation devolved any further, neither of them would particularly relish the end result. He’d grown quite proficient at putting an end to their forays towards murder in such close quarters. “I’ll leave you to make good on that.”

“Saying goodnight so early?” Loki reached out and plucked the book from Victor’s indulgent hands.

Victor didn’t reply, simply left. There was a theory coming to fruition, and he would need several hours to prepare it for application. 

\---

They’d made something of a game out of the cameras in Loki’s rooms. Loki would discover one and destroy it, and Victor would conceal another at a new location after an indeterminate amount of time. Currently, Victor had coverage of Loki’s bedroom and one study but was missing two others and a small sitting room. The equipment in the studies was typically disposed of as soon as it was found, but Loki liked to progress slowly with what was placed in the bedroom. He enjoyed putting on a show, although it likely didn’t have the effect he intended.

Tonight was a prime example.

On the screen, Loki was languishing in a pale pool of light that should have come from an angle making it impossible to pour through the window, save that Loki wanted it to be. He lifted a hand, turned vaguely to left (answering Victor’s question as to whether he knew the camera’s location--- he did), and dragged the nails of three fingers deliberately down his chest until they caught on a leather fastening above the breastbone. The pressure of them slipped the knot from the loop, exposing a stripe of skin that Loki pressed a palm to, dried blood rubbing off in little flecks that the camera picked up nonetheless.

His other hand worked from the hem upwards, an unhurried reveal that met in the middle before the measured pull to the side, over one shoulder, then the next, until the leather and silk fell to hang from his forearms.

Loki turned his back on the camera with a protracted smile just visible on the slant of his face as he let it drop. The line of his spinal column was interrupted by a marking that Victor had never seen before and therefore had to have been obtained recently. Victor straightened in his seat. A circle of script he could not recognize, converging in a depiction of something avian, obviously of magical content---

The body putting it on display slipped it out of view as Loki canted a hip, shifted his weight to provide a profile, and slid his belt out of place. Victor clenched his teeth in frustration. The man was utterly maddening. He knew precisely what would draw Victor’s attention. That push of fabric over the jut of hips, down pale thighs, to sink around ankles that escaped its confines to pad across dark carpet, was orchestrated to infuriate him.

Loki stretched across his bed, a knee drawn up before the leg slinked down the sheets and fell open to the side.

They needed to have a conversation.

\---

The netting that settled over Loki’s still form was made from an enchanted chain of ash and rose thorn, sewn with small rubies that dotted his bare skin like a picturesque mist of blood.

Loki’s eyes snapped open the moment it made contact, but only smiled when he found he could not move his limbs or call on his magic. “You’ve been busy, Victor. I thought you’d asked me to come home because you missed me.”

“I did.” Victor sat on the bed beside him, stroked the back of one gloved finger over a scar in the hollow of Loki’s throat. “You are by far my most worthwhile test subject. I’m pleased to see the net works.”

“And what will you do with this discovery, my dear?” The criss-cross of the thin chainwork lined his face. A ruby hooked on his lips, moved against them as he spoke. Darkness that Victor recognized intimately crept into his stare from the edges, deep and silted like well water, venomous, dangerous. “Take my tongue to satisfy your spellwork?”

“That alone would not kill you,” Victor noted, his tone mild. “But the dearth of intelligent conversation…”

Loki gave a sympathetic hum. “Painful, I know.” For all that it was not reflected in his expression, he was ready to kill. Victor felt a thrill at it, a rare challenge few could provide, one more monument to his own prowess. He’d had several occasions to temper his own rage against Loki’s, as iron sharpens iron, and every occasion had been proven inconclusive but had added to his strength and collected data. His understanding of Loki was a work in progress, and he took every opportunity to absorb new information.

“That… recently acquired tattoo of yours.” Victor’s fingertips came to rest on the center of Loki’s abdomen, directly over where he knew that inked curiosity would be if he dug through the flesh, muscle, and organ.

“Ah.” The syllable was nearly a laugh. “That caught your eye?”

“Tell me.” Victor exerted some pressure.

“Hmm…” Even without freedom of movement, Loki still gave the impression of inherent grace. “I think that I won’t.” That was discouraging, but it was also ephemeral. Loki would explain it to him when the fancy struck. He always did.

Victor inattentively tapped his fingers at the midline of Loki’s ribcage, and the voice beneath his breath changed key. There was an impatient need to its dynamic. 

He tilted his head a fraction, observed eyes, pulse, the flush of his captive’s skin. “You want me.”

“And you have me.” Loki looked at him expectantly. “Do something.”

He lowered his hand to mold to skin, felt the muscle move beneath his palm, full, the strangeness of a lie of warmth, the bite of the net’s magic. “Such as?”

“Such as: I would greatly appreciate your hand on my cock, _Victor_.” Loki flashed him his teeth. 

The dry rumble in Victor’s throat had aspirations of becoming a laugh. “As greatly as you would appreciate your hand on my carotid?”

“Oh, that’s highly conditional.” Loki arched his body the tiny fraction that he could before relaxing. “Do you intend to kill me tonight?”

“No.” He wanted to understand that ink, that script, and he couldn’t obtain that information from dissection alone. And Loki, this riddle of an immortal, was…

Loki’s focus slid down his body, and something in Victor’s chest reared its head. The emotion on Loki’s face was naked, bared more deeply than his body, warring between hunger, fascination, and possessive intent. “Then I’d prefer the suggested work of your hand to the suggested work of mine.”

In anyone else, the answering sensation lending itself to Victor’s awareness might have been termed attraction. “I believe I can oblige you.”

That added a flavor of anticipation to Loki’s expression, a feral chink in the armor of a god. “Oblige away, partner mine.”

It was an easy thing to do, and Loki was always so very captivating in the clutches of something that could not be masked. Victor raised himself onto the bed, above Loki, one leg settled between his and the other shaped to the outer line of Loki’s hip and thigh. The net caught underneath his weight with no slack, created little hills of flesh with its chains.

“You can’t feel it through the metal,” Loki hissed through a breath of noise. “But this web of yours _stings_.” Another, fought-for arch of spine. “Yet it’s painless. Heat, vibration.”

“Things that you enjoy, I recall.” Victor looked to his hands, the left splaying fingers extending upwards to brush against Loki’s jugular, the right hovering above Loki’s arousal. He lowered it leisurely, and Loki did not move. It was more than the compulsion of the net. It was watchfulness inspired by the rarity of Victor’s attention. Acutely, Victor remembered the speed with which that stillness could turn to insistent selfishness, demanding, unrelenting.

“Oh, yes, I am enjoying it.” The words were steady but the spaces between them were stabbed, punctured by little breaths. “And I will r-recall every _detail_.” A stutter, how gratifying. “As I study what you’ve done to… to create this contraption.”

“You think of me when you’re working…” Victor leaned forward, braced himself with the hand below Loki’s throat, soaked up the motion of Loki’s hips with palm and thigh. The motion was softer, shallower than under usual circumstances, restricted by the net. “I’m flattered.”

“You give me so many things to think about.” His smile could no longer be termed anything other than a snarl. “Now, harder, before I start to forget that famous disposition of yours.”

Victor was never one to do anything by halves, and if Loki was so desperate to wreck himself, he would be happy to provide the cliffs. There was no visible objection to the slick coolness of metal or the small uneven joints where the pieces fit together, but Loki gasped a phrase Victor knew was a charm that the net starved. Victor understood his meaning well enough. “Allow me.” He dragged his hand up over Loki’s cock, murmured his translation of Loki’s attempt, and left a stripe of oil in its wake to blend with the pre-cum. The mixture slicked flesh and chain and seeped into the crevices of his gloves. Bertrand’s replacement would have cleaning to do.

An abundance of pressure wasn’t necessary. Loki did much of the work for him, struggling for the friction Victor provided with his weight and showing him the confines of the net in the process. When Loki reached the point of anger that pushed him to the cusp of a growled demand, Victor gripped him through the lattice, stroked at a persistent rate at odds with the rhythm of his hips. Loki clenched his thighs around him, secured him closer, inch by inch, as inch by inch of him dragged through Victor’s hand. Victor kept it tight, rough but unhurried, didn’t let Loki coax him into changing his pace. The quiver of muscle beneath Loki’s skin caught Victor’s attention, sent his thoughts flipping through an anatomical array of the layers adding up to his living body, all equating to this drive for satiation.

Hearing the voice ordinarily wrapped around exquisite deceits dissolve into wordlessness was… empowering, more than the net’s immobilization, more than its drain of magic. Every clipped moan was a triumph. Loki’s face was tipped up as much as it could be, lips parted somewhere between the shape of euphoria and appetite. The eyes Victor had spent precious hours learning to appraise, to decipher the slightest minutia in each look, were wide as if they could draw the entirety of his surroundings into them. It made him want to see precisely how much Loki could take, could hold in his possession, but he suspected neither of them currently had the patience for that prolonged of an event.

He could see Loki’s hands fighting for movement, trying to act as Loki intended them to. Without the net, he would have had fingers tangled in the fabric of Victor’s cloak, would have been clawing for purchase. Instead, his limbs were stationary, and all that motion was solely articulated in his expression and the heaving of his chest. Victor drank it in, absorbed the state of him and committed the appearance of his honesty to memory.

Despite the vocal enthusiasm Loki displayed during the preceding moments, Loki came on a silent, choked exhale. His body seized against him, took on imprints of metal, net, and fabric that became visible with the rock of his body through the climax. Magic sizzled beneath the net and the rubies sang with it until the vibration coaxed Loki to finally make a sound on the fall. It was breathless, low. The evidence of vulnerability made him want to repeat the experience.

Victor remained an immovable entity until Loki stilled.

Then Loki gave a soft laugh, and Victor decided it was time to take his leave. He pushed himself to his feet, let the first digits of his fingers catch in the net, and pulled it off of Loki’s body as he stepped away. He didn’t spare a glance over his shoulder as the length of the net trailed behind him to make a shushing noise against the floor. “This will be useful data.”

Loki hummed out another laugh that had a genuine tint of humor mixed with the mockery. “Ordinarily, I’d be insulted, but under the circumstances, I think I’m content with my contribution to your science.” Victor had his hand on the door handle when Loki’s voice stopped him again. “But Victor…”

He canted his head enough to give the illusion of interest.

“If you think that you can engineer a device to kill me with this information…” That was the voice that had heralded murder. “You have grossly misinterpreted its value.”

“You’ll understand if I choose to come to my own conclusions.” Victor pushed through the door. “I care nothing for your input.”

“Oh, a line like that!” Loki called after him. “If you still need the tongue of a great liar, be assured yours doesn’t satisfy the criteria.”

Victor did not dignify that with a response or a reaction. He continued down the hall, balling the net up into his hand as he went. It was still wet in places from oil and cum, but that could be dealt with in its own time. His real concern at the moment was whether the bind had taken. If the rubies had not fixated on Loki’s specific energy, the net would not serve its full purpose. Its proven effects thus far would have their uses, there was no denying that, but there was much greater potential.

Brain matter could be defined in many ways in the context of magic, and Loki had just poured pure emotion and truth into the mesh in Victor’s hands.

It would do.


End file.
